Our Lady of the Forest (26 page)

True.

So maybe it's better if we do the baptism.

But do you mean right now? Literally? Because it can't be done. It just can't be. You would have to complete a conversion course. A course known as the catechumenate. An initiation into Christian faith. It generally takes a full year.

I think I'm ready right now, Father.

How so?

I've seen Our Lady.

For me to baptize you now, Ann, would be tantamount to affirming the veracity of your visions. Lending my priestly support to them. I'm not quite sure I can do that.

Why not?

Because I don't yet believe your visions are real.

What would it take to make you believe?

It would take—well—hard evidence. The evidence yielded by the process of discernment. A set of facts and circumstances that appeared… incontrovertible. All that would make me believe.

But do you have evidence of God, Father?

Your visions, Ann, are different from God.

So you don't believe.

No. I don't.

So you're not going to help me build the church. Or baptize me. You won't do either.

As soon as I believe I'll do both, Ann.

Then, said Ann, I'm really lost.

         

At the prison Sunday night Tom Cross drew shit watch; he sat on a chair in the medical unit hallway and stared through an observation window, waiting for a naked prisoner to pass a balloon full of crack cocaine. The prisoner wore his hair in greasy cornrows and slept on the floor with his back to Tom, and whenever he rearranged his limbs, which was often, he reminded Tom of a zoo animal, almost no trace left of pride in his movements, a languid choreography of animal defeat, a slack heavy lifer in his thirties or early forties with raised gray burn scars on his back and shoulders and silver psoriatic elbows. The job of watching his restless sleep grew boring in the most obvious and inevitable manner, so that Tom sat literally twiddling his thumbs, nodding off sporadically, checking his watch absentmindedly—and forgetting what it said immediately—massaging his neck, staring at nothing, thinking of Eleanor and of Tammy from the Big Bottom, thinking of the impossible depth of his debt and of the way Jabari scrubbed the toilet bowl, her chocolate-brown arms and yellow rubber gloves, the long-haired girl in the booth at the campground bent so that her breasts came to rest against her ranger shirt, the woman with her mouth full of fancy trail mix, her fat legs sheathed in black spandex. For a while he mulled Lee Ann Bridges' skull, her hair barrette, green-hued thigh bone, and shreds of nylon rain gear. Ann of Oregon's brief oration, darkness falling across the world, the greedy, the selfish, the true believers, the woman whose warts had disappeared and who felt no need for cigarettes now, his own capricious petition. Ann of Oregon clutching her bullhorn, Ann canted forward improbably on her knees, Ann in ecstasy.

Dullness and ennui. Guilt and sorrow. Tom pulled out the Gideon's pocket Bible he'd borrowed surreptitiously from the nursing station desk and perused its tripartite indexing system:
WHERE TO FIND HELP
—When Afraid, Anxious, Backsliding, et cetera;
TEACHINGS ABOUT SOME OF LIFE'S PROBLEMS
—Adultery, Adversity, Anger, Anxiety;
CHRISTIAN VIRTUES AND CHARACTER
—Abundant Life, Citizenship, Cleanliness, Consecration, Contentment, Courage, Diligence. He turned with curiosity to Facing a Crisis, which took him first to Psalm 121, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence my help will come, and then to Matthew 6:28, Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.

Lilies of the field? What? thought Tom. He tried Adversity: Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? Divorce: What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Worried: Take therefore no thought for the morrow. In Trouble: The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Disaster Threatens: He shall cover thee with his feathers. Defeated: For thy sake are we killed all the day long. The prisoner defecated and Tom barged in with rubber gloves, a plastic probe stick, a nose plug, and a surgeon's mask. There was no balloon and he said to the prisoner I guess we ought to go back to the unit and turned away leaving him foul and naked with a packet of sterile wipes. Tom went down the hall, dropped the probe and the rubber gloves in the Medical Waste bin, signed off for the prisoner's clothes, and brought them back still folded. Here's your clothes, he said. Damn, said the prisoner. You can wash up back at the unit, Tom told him.

They went out. Tom made note of the Time and Outcome of Feces Watch in the logbook and initialed it. They left the medical unit and crossed the courtyard side by side. It was raining softly and there was something medieval and Teutonic about the black expanse beyond the razor wire and the watchtowers and high lit walls. Barbaric Goths dressed in wolf skins; vats of hot tar poured from crenellated ramparts. They put you through the ringer for nothing, said Tom. Exactly, said the prisoner. I tried to say it. But nobody listens to me.

Me neither.

That's different.

But I don't expect anyone to listen anymore.

I say this: You don't know the half.

Come again? asked Tom. What don't I know?

You don't know shit. How you going to know it?

I don't know shit?

That's what I said.

What don't I know? Name something specific.

I can't tell you about it because you haven't been in here.

I'm in here now, though.

You leave when your shift's over.

I'm still in prison.

You can quit, said the prisoner.

And do what? asked Tom. Exactly what?

Whatever they do out there right now. Fix leaky roofs or make umbrellas. Sell rubber boots. Sell raincoats.

They're not doing anything.

They're always doing something.

Anyway name something you think I don't know.

I can't even do that. Because you don't speak my language.

Well pretend like it's possible.

I can't do that either. Because you're on the outside. And it's all good if it's on the outside, man. It's all good, you know.

It isn't all good, not true, said Tom.

Have it your way, said the prisoner.

Tom stopped beneath the overhang at Building D and pointed a finger at the guard in the booth, who nodded and buzzed the door open. What if I said I'd let you out? he asked the prisoner. But only if you let me break your neck beforehand? So you're a free man but paralyzed?

Break my neck?

Like I said.

Break my neck?

Answer the question.

Hypothetical don't mean shit. It don't mean shit, all right?

Well don't say it's all good on the outside, okay? Things can be messed up anywhere.

You still don't know shit, said the prisoner.

Tom waited in the day room while the prisoner showered and then he celled him in. He and another guard named Marvin Meriwether who had been a faller like Tom for seven years and who had worked another seven as a millwright took the 4 a.m. watch at Unit B, the Youthful Offenders Program. Murderers, rapists, armed robbers, arsonists, all of them not eighteen yet, some of them not even fifteen. They couldn't be in the general population because the older guys beat and raped them. Tom didn't speak to them very much, it seemed to him that distance was best, he attached an aura of threat to his mannerisms, he let himself symbolize moral apathy, his rare comments were cold and cheerless. You act like a girl you get treated like a girl. Don't go looking for sympathy. You're on your own—no one gives a shit.

Tom and Marvin Meriwether did nothing together; they stood in the rotunda talking. Loggers they'd known. Equipment. Places. The Mar H-39 High Pressure Boom, the M.A.C. Thunderbird Mobile Yarder, Max Taylor, Frank Combs, Marvin Meriwether's father who'd been a high climber in the early fifties and then a rigging boss. Marvin's sister, married a second time, the new husband had daughters eighteen and sixteen, they were living in Winlock, the new husband drove a tractor-trailer, he liked Harley-Davidsons. Marvin's son, on a crab boat in the Bering Sea, second season, he'd lost an ear there. The Seahawks, the Sea Gals, swing shift. Marvin's knee. Clyde Williams' hip replacement. The high school basketball team's muddled coach. The point guard, Sonny Schmidt's son, his brother had been the point guard too, three years before. Neither saw the court well, dribbled with their heads down. Spin fishing for steelhead. Brine salting salmon. Whitetail trail in wet packed snow. At five-thirty a prisoner wanted out, claiming sick, on orders from the booth they put him in the dayroom, a white kid with plump hairy legs in briefs, lamely holding his doughboy gut, long hair, tattoos on his shoulders, he was in because he'd participated in the beating death of a homeless man, he was going to puke he insistently warned them, and then he did on the dayroom floor, what he wanted next was to shower, clean up, go and see the doctor. What a plan, said Tom. But here's a better one. You swab the floor and we'll cell you in. Come on, said the kid. I'm tied up in knots. You should have just puked in your toilet, said Tom. Come on, said the kid. No, said Tom. I'm seriously sick, man, the kid complained. A person at home pukes they clean it up, said Tom, why shouldn't you have to do the same? I'm royally sick, the kid insisted. All sorts of people puke at night, said Tom, but do they get in their cars at five a.m. and drive to a hospital to see a doctor? No, they get back in bed and wait it out and that's what you're going to do too, you don't get special treatment. You can take a shower, put in Meriwether.

Meriwether went for a mop and bucket while Tom stood over the prisoner. The boy rested his head on a table like a student falling asleep at his desk so that Tom had the chance to inspect his tattoos, the one on the right read TMDF, the one on the left was a swastika. Tell you what, Tom said. Let's cell you in until your clean-up gear arrives.

What?

Back to your cell.

Jesus. Come on.

You want to argue?

Come on, man.

It sounds to me like you're arguing.

I'm sick like a dog.

Back to your cell.

The boy didn't move. Okay, said Tom. I've asked you three times. So you'd have to say I'm within my rights. He looked up at the guard in the monitor booth, who was watching with what Tom construed as an endorsing, if casual, interest. Tom turned his head toward the dayroom loudspeaker. I'm going to cell him in, he called. Go ahead, the booth guard replied, leaning into his microphone. I'll buzz his door for you.

Okay, said Tom. This is it—last chance. The boy still had his head on the table. Tom seized his hair at the nape of his neck and with his other hand twisted the boy's arm back until he had him in a shoulder lock. God damn, said the boy, and stood up.

I can make it hurt more or you can start walking.

God damn, the boy repeated.

Traction, said Tom. Traction can hurt.

Jesus Christ you motherfucker.

This is a progressive thing that ends with your shoulder dislocating depending how far you want to take it.

I'm fucking sick.

I'm celling you in.

Back off—Jesus, man.

I will if you walk.

I'm trying to walk.

Let me give you a hand, you fuck. Tom steered the boy toward the door of his cell. Let me go, said the boy.

Cooperate first.

I'm trying to cooperate.

No you're not.

Yes I am.

What's happening to you now, you earned this, said Tom.

You're breaking my shoulder, the boy answered.

This, said Tom, is all your own doing. And felt a hardening sense of glee, a torturer's simultaneous immersion and detachment. This didn't have to happen at all. You should have cooperated earlier.

The boy squeezed his eyes shut. What's your problem? he asked.

I don't have a problem.

You're warped, dude. Twisted.

Don't tell me that, said Tom. Don't say that.

He tightened up on the shoulder lock beyond what circumstances required. He knew he was past his job description now, in the realm of personal matters. But it felt good. It was what he wanted. Darkness falling, darkness ascendant. I don't want to hear that, he told the boy. I don't want to hear I'm twisted.

The boy was in too much pain to answer. Tom felt panic contorting the boy's body. Marvin Meriwether came in then with the mop, a bucket on wheels, and a handful of rags. He stared at Tom and coughed politely. Tom, he said. Here's the clean-up stuff. Let him clean things up.

Okay, said Tom, and let his prisoner go. Now you can mop your own puke.

         

At 8 a.m. they went off shift, Tom with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, Meriwether kneading his forehead. They crossed the courtyard in the early light, the rain still falling like a dream of rain, barely tangible, mist, vapor. The hills beyond the prison walls were blurred gently by a laggard fog, by slow fog tendrils sinking through the trees, down the morning ridges. Across the rec yard, out to the west, beyond the wall and between two watchtowers was a clear-cut Cross Logging was responsible for, a neat forty-acre hillside rectangle, a view of Tom's work as it once had been, wreaking that particular havoc in the spring of 1985 without hesitation or second thoughts. It was highly addictive, cutting trees, he'd dreamed about it frequently or sleeplessly pondered tomorrow's tactics, a fan-shaped felling pattern, butts together, one drag for the skidder instead of three, logical efficiencies, creative means to maximize profit, how good it had felt to advance that edge between open space and uncut timber, broadening up the felling lanes, a solid advance and movement, progress, the crew in sync in that wordless way when everything was going well, no disorder, confusion, or discussion, most of the equipment sort of holding up, out of that unit they'd taken a good number of pricey special-mill-grade logs, they'd done a lot of bucking at the grade break, they'd also done some long butting, there'd been some fast taper trees.